Building an email campaign from scratch doesn't have to be complicated; Marketing Cloud breaks it down into a clear, manageable process that covers everything from audience selection to scheduling.
Creating a compelling email campaign is a great way to engage your audience. In Marketing Cloud, this process is broken down into four simple steps. This guide will walk you through each of them.
Before you start, make sure you have your contacts (as a list, table, or segment) and your email content ready.
Step 1: Campaign Details
First, navigate to Campaigns > Email Campaigns and click Create New. Select Email Campaign.
Here’s what you’ll need to fill in:
Field | Mandatory | Description |
|---|
Campaign Name | Yes | A name for your campaign for internal reference. |
Subject | Yes | The subject line of your email is what your contacts will see. |
Preheader | No | A short summary that appears after the subject line in many email clients. |
Campaign Tags | No | Add tags to organize and later filter your campaigns for reporting. |
Address | Yes | The physical address of your business, pre-filled from your account information. |
Once you're done, click Next.
Step 2: Contacts
Now, it's time to choose who will receive your campaign.
Field | Mandatory | Description |
|---|
Brands | No | Associate the campaign with a brand to use its specific DKIM header and tracking domain. |
Select List/Segment/Table | No | Choose the contact list(s), segment(s), or table(s) to send the campaign to. You must select at least one. |
From Name | Yes | The sender's name. This is auto-filled from the selected list but can be changed. |
From Email | Yes | The sender's email address. Also, auto-filled from the list and editable. |
Reply To | Yes | The email address where you want to receive replies. |
Language | Yes | The language for system-generated links in the email. |
You can also select lists, segments, or journeys to suppress (exclude) from this campaign.
Click Save and Next to proceed.
Step 3: Content
In this step, you'll select the content for your email.
Field | Description |
|---|
Content Name | Select your pre-made email content from the list. |
Show email preview link | If on, this adds a "Having trouble viewing this email? Click here" link to the top of your email. |
Dynamic content preview | Enable this to see how dynamic tags render in the final email. |
Render Preview | See how your email will look across various email clients and devices. |
Before moving on, click Spam Check. Your spam score must be less than 5 to send the campaign. If it's too high, you'll receive recommendations to improve it.
Click Next to go to the final step.
Step 4: Schedule
You have several options for sending your campaign:
- Send Now: Sends the campaign immediately after review.
- Priority Send: Sends to your most engaged users first for better inbox delivery.
- Timezone Optimization: Delivers emails to each contact in their time zone.
- Send-Time Optimization: Uses email open behavior to send the campaign on the optimal day and time for each contact.
- Conversion-Time Optimization: Delivers emails based on contacts' online purchase habits.
- Recurring: Sends the campaign on a recurring schedule.
You can also enable Pre-Send Calculation to prepare the audience three hours before the send time, which is useful for large or complex segments.
Finally, you can send a test email to up to 30 recipients.
Once you've made your selections, click Review to see a final summary of your campaign. If everything looks good, click Schedule or Send. Congratulations, your email campaign is on its way!